Mandabi

Mandabi was a 1968 Senegalese film that depicted Croouption and Oligarchy in the country. Director Ousmane Sembène made this movie to tell the story of life in Senegal in the late 1960s, and the film was like a Thai Society of all time.

Ousmane Sembene's Mandabi traces the descent of a poor Senegalese Muslim who, upon trying to cash a money-order at his village post office, somehow finds himself pitted against overwhelming bureaucratic and societal forces. The protagonist, Ibrahim (Makhouredia Gueye, unassuming and comically dignified), is a lazy and vain but fundamentally decent man, an illiterate villager whose unexpected windfall becomes the catalyst of his downfall - the means by which this simple, more-or-less honest, foible-ridden individual comes face-to-face with the indifference, the corruption of the modern world. His story takes on the quality of a fable, a slight, at times comic one. Sembene, an observer of human nature, keeps his characters at arms-length, and by watching them carefully from this middle-distance is able to convey their basic equality as creatures trying to survive in a confusing, unfair world. It also happens that this mid-range staging is perfect for creating a deliberate, unobtrusive sense of comedy, of human folly gently revealed. The film is, at the same time, a window upon the culture of post-colonial Senegal, a world that seems poised uneasily between tradition (village life; Islam) and modernity (bureaucracy; crime; money-grubbing). There's no question that Sembene is on the side of the little people - he may chide Ibrahim for letting his wives run his life, for being irresponsible with money (he borrows on the money-order before it's cashed), but he also applauds him for his doggedness and faith, the things that poor people always have to lean on. A modest film but a wise one (despite a slightly forced denouement).

In order to truly appreciate Mandabi one must first know a little something about director Ousmane Sembene. One can trace the burgeoning success of West African cinema to Sembene's body of work which aimed to tell stories that were uniquely African. Without the international success of Black Girl (1966) and Xala (1975), the work of fellow Senegalese Djibril Diop Mambety and Malian filmmaker Souleymane Cisse may have never been discovered. At first, Sembene was also an accomplished anti-colonialist writer who's concern for social change led to a directing career to reach a wider audience.

Mandabi is partially based on Sembene's short story "The Money- Order". In it an illiterate, middle-aged man attempts to cash a money-order sent by a family member who has emigrated to Paris. Due to the newly independent country's rapidly spreading corruption, a burgeoning criminal underclass, and the general incompetence of government officials, Ibrahim (Gueye) struggles to accomplish what is otherwise a simple goal.

Senegal circa 1968 was administered by the largely socialist government of President Leopold Senghor. Senghor favored close ties with former colonialist France which ran counter to long brewing resentment and popular thought among other African nations who viewed France, Britain, Belgium et al. as oppressors. Underneath the film's strong sense of irony and absurdity you get the sense that the bureaucracy (and thus the government) that controls the fate of Ibrahim is completely foreign and unnaturally weak. It operates as a tool of submission and dehumanization to someone like Ibrahim who is un-wanting or unwilling to "modernize" yet for his nephew (Diouf) and the local shop keeper (Ture) whom represent a new generation easily manages to circumvent the bureaucracy in favor of a black market. This theme is further mirrored in Sembene's satirical zenith of El Hadji (Thierno Leye) impotence in the film Xala.

Yet in Mandabi, the satire, while more subdued than Xala feels more damning towards colonization as a political system and the authoritarianism of post-colonial African society. Ibrahim hopes familial ties and a few honest favors will get him what he wants but due in-part by traditionalism mesh-mashing with multiple systems of oppression, Ibrahim can only count on his first wife's (N'Diaye) constant berating.

Ibrahim's constant struggle mirrors that of the protagonist in Bicycle Thieves (1948). Yet while that film's neo-realist flair was partially the result of war, Mandabi endeavors amid a maze of post- colonial chaos with the new generation jockeying for absolute power. Dark, frustrating and heartbreaking Mandabi showcases a story and by extension a country where authority is an unnatural corruption and only rascals win.

The pace of this movie is as languid as life in a sun-baked country. But stick with it. Even when the plot is predictable, the action is not, nor are the characters. Believing he has come into money from a successful relative in Paris (who is shown sweeping streets, far from wealthy), a proud middle-aged Dakar man with two strong-willed wives and several children tries to cash the money order (mandabi). He encounters catch-22 bureaucracies, his friends all become borrowers, his creditors turn ugly, and con men latch on to him, but Ousmane Sembene (the director, and one of Senegal's most important writers) leavens the frustration with humour, and even manages to sustain a certain amount of suspense-- not easy in a film as languid as this one. Scenes of city life in Dakar's warren like streets are realistically and straightforwardly presented, and the story, though very simple, stays with you long after the movie's over. A must if you're interested in African film, if only for historical interest.

A Senegal tale of societal male dominance & how money changes people. Our lead character to his wives as they tend to his every comfort, "I am the husband, only I decide what to do." "Good wives consult their husband before making any decisions." Again, another example of female status/value somewhere below that of cattle.

Too often found in Islamic or poorly educated populations.